What do they actually do
Superunit automates the outreach work required to complete employment, income, and reference verifications. Their AI agents research contacts, place phone calls, send emails or faxes, capture the requested details, record and transcribe interactions, and return structured results to a customer’s system via API or integrations such as Accio Data superunit.ai (case study).
Background‑check companies and consumer reporting agencies use Superunit to offload manual calling and emailing. The company says it is already processing thousands of verifications per month (YC profile), and a published case study with Data Facts shows 62% completed or third‑party verified, with an average completion time of 0.82 business days; 65% finished within 24 hours and 80% within 48 hours (case study).
Pricing is pay‑for‑completion only (“no completion — no charge”), positioned as an alternative to adding headcount or outsourcing to call centers (pricing, superunit.ai).
Who are their target customer(s)
- Small-to-mid background-screening companies and CRAs: They spend significant staff time chasing employers by phone and email, making verifications slow, costly, and hard to scale. They want faster turnaround without hiring more coordinators (superunit.ai, YC profile).
- Large CRAs and enterprise screening providers: They need predictable SLAs, audit trails, and consistent quality at high volume; in‑house teams drive variability and higher operating costs (case study).
- Background-check platforms and integrators: They want a drop‑in verification engine to improve completion rates for customers without building outreach systems, via API and ready-made integrations (e.g., Accio Data) (superunit.ai).
- Screening teams that outsource to call centers/BPOs: Outsourcing can be expensive, slow, and inconsistent. They want a lower-cost, more reliable way to get completed verifications with clear documentation (pricing).
- Staffing agencies and in‑house verification desks: Delayed verifications slow hiring and require maintaining fluctuating outreach headcount. They want faster returns so staff can focus on adjudication (case study).
How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers
- First 10: Directly approach known screening contacts and YC network intros to run short, low‑risk pilots using pay‑on‑completion pricing; use the Data Facts case study to validate speed and completion rates (case study, pricing).
- First 50: Productize onboarding via API and integrator paths (e.g., Accio Data), then run targeted outbound to small‑to‑mid CRAs with a one‑week trial centered on published metrics (0.82 business days average, 62% verified or third‑party) (case study).
- First 100: Pursue a two‑track GTM: enterprise sales for larger CRAs with SLAs and compliance materials, and a channel/self‑serve motion listing Superunit in platform marketplaces to capture volume, reinforced by referrals and packaged integrations (YC profile).
What is the rough total addressable market
Top-down context:
Employment screening is a multi‑billion‑dollar market globally, with verification segments representing roughly 30–60% of spend. Using published estimates, the verification slice is about $1.5B–$4.1B worldwide today, with North America ~49% of the total (~$0.7B–$2.0B) (Business Research Company, Allied, Mordor, Insight Partners coverage).
Bottom-up calculation:
U.S. hires were ~71.0M in 2023; assuming 10–30% of hires undergo formal employment/income verification at $20–$50 per verification implies ~$140M to ~$1.06B U.S. spend, illustrating sensitivity to penetration and price assumptions (BLS, GoodHire fees, Truework pricing note).
Assumptions:
- Verification share of screening spend is 30–60% based on mixed segment estimates.
- Share of hires requiring verification ranges from 10–30%, varying by industry and employer size.
- North America represents ~49% of global employment-screening spend based on cited reports.
Who are some of their notable competitors
- The Work Number (Equifax): Employer-contributed payroll database for instant income and employment verifications; wins when the target employer participates so no outreach is required (The Work Number, Equifax developer).
- Truework: API-first verification platform combining instant payroll hits, document parsing, and smart outreach; competes directly on automated verifications and ease of integration (Truework).
- Checkr: Background-check provider with a broad screening API that includes employment/education verifications and candidate-facing flows, offering one-stop screening plus verifications (Checkr employment verification, API).
- HireRight: Established global screener operating large manual verification teams; competes on complex, international, or highly regulated verifications at enterprise scale (HireRight).
- Sterling: Enterprise-focused screening firm with APIs and global verification operations; competes where customers want SLAs and a single vendor for many screening services (Sterling, API).